New Danish Government Breaks its Word and Slashes University Teaching Budgets

After the American Century                          

Many hoped that the new socialist-led government would offer a dramatic improvement over the previous right-wing coalition. But in many areas where they promised change, they have continued the old policies. Some of the promises they have broken were made with extreme clarity, and then forgotten immediately after they came to power.

One of the most notorious examples was the promise, given in writing as an unshakeable commitment, that the hospital emergency room in Svenborg would not be closed. It serves several islands and the southern part of the larger island where I live, This signed promise was broken as soon as they took office. Now they declare it will be closed. I firmly believe that some people will die because it will take them over an hour from the time an ambulance arrives until they can get to the only emergency room left on these islands, in Odense, where I live. This is a blow to a beleaguered area that already has trouble attracting residents. Before the election, the Socialists claimed they would help such outlying areas, and not continue the policy of centralization that is undermining them.

Likewise, the new Socialist-led government promised to roll back a large cut to the university budgets proposed by the old government before the election. In Denmark a certain amount is paid to each university for every student it matriculates. The old government proposed to cut this amount by 3000 kroner per student, and the new government now agrees. In 2012 Danish universities will find their teaching budgets reduced by c. 600 million kroner, or more than 100 million dollars. (Those who read Danish, see the news stories here, and here) To put this another way, support in most of the humanities will fall by 6.5% per student, but given rising costs the effect will feel like a 10% reduction. This decision will force universities to cut the number of teaching hours, put students into larger classes, fire some faculty, and slow down the purchase of essential equipment. UPDATE, October 2012. These things are all happening. There are now "language" classes, focused on improving oral proficiency, with more than 30 students, in some cases more than 40. This means that during an entire semester a student in such a class will only speak English for about 20 minutes each, at most about two minutes per week. It means that new BA programs are implemented without hiring any additional faculty or providing any additional money in the budget, while announcing goals that cannot possibly be met given the faculty and resources.

These cuts are twice as large as the increases announced for research, amounting to c. 300 million kroner for 2012. These funds are not all funneled to the universities, however. For example, some research money will go to hospitals or other institutions. In any case, the research funds that do go to universities cannot be used for teaching. The plans for 2013 call for even larger reductions for teaching, which will create a severe crisis.

Before the election the Socialists said (or rather they pretended to believe) that increased funding for education was essential, because the only real asset Denmark has is its people. A highly educated and skilled population will be needed to compete in the global market. But this new government, like the old one, now is unwilling to pay for it.  SDU's Rektor Dr. Jens Oddershed, speaking for the rektors of all the universities, declared that the government had broken its word. He was being diplomatic. A more objective view would be that the Socialists are cynical prevaricators.

Readers inside Denmark know that these are just two of many examples of the socialist-led government's unapologetic refusal to honor campaign promises. Like the previous government, the Socialists lack integrity. They proclaim one thing, but do quite another. In a few areas they are better, but in general it seems that, as George Orwell put it in the conclusion to Animal Farm, "The pigs have become men."

Where might the money come from to support hospitals and education? This government has refused to roll back tax cuts given to the wealthy by the previous right-wing government. Anyone can now see that the cuts were based on miscalculations and that they were un-financed.

Why should universities and hospitals be cut instead of rolling back the tax cuts for the wealthy? This is not even remotely a socialist program. It is not even an intelligent capitalist program. The new government has been a severe disappointment.

Cleveland's Marvelous Public Library

After the American Century

I had the pleasure of spending one day in the Cleveland Public Library. The librarians were knowledgeable, courteous, and efficient. The two buildings were handsome places to work, but the real test of a public library or an archive for a historian is what one finds. Sometimes an entire day yields almost nothing, perhaps due to poor luck, but often due to poorly organized materials, finding aids that are inadequate, or staff who make only a minimal effort. Sometimes, I get what I hoped to find, and go away satisfied, which was my experience on a similar mission at the Boston Public Library a year ago. But once in a great while I find much more than I had dared expect, and if this happens it almost always is because the librarians and archivists are real professionals. 

Cleveland Public Library, the new building holds the photographic collections

In this particularly happy research expedition, I spent almost all my time in the photographic collection, housed in the newer of the two library buildings and located on the fourth floor. All the images that I requested seemed to be near at hand, not buried in a vault or stored off-site. Moreover, the staff, led by the extremely capable Margaret Baughman, took a real interest in my project, and suggested places to look that I had no way of knowing about.

In the space of a single day, I reviewed hundreds and hundreds of images, selecting 14 in the end for reproduction. These images were scanned and ready for me as digital files the following day. Moreover, the price was extremely fair, in an age when every archive routinely demands $100 or more for each image. I have paid as much as $500 for a single image from a well-known magazine, whose name you might guess but I will not specify here. Such high prices force historians to make compromises or omit images, unless they are fortunate enough to find an oasis like the Cleveland Public Library.

Below, I reproduce one of the images I found there, but to fit it within this blog it is a mere jpeg file, not the wonderful TIFF scan provided to me. This is too large for easy use on this blog.

This image shows part of the Ford Motor Company's Model T assembly line. This is how it looked in c. 1915, when the method of manufacturing had just being invented. It was so new it did not yet have a widely used name. Originally, this photograph was used in one of the Cleveland newspapers, now defunct, whose images were donated to the Cleveland Public Library. I amusing it in America's Assembly Line, to be published by MIT Press in 2013, a centennial history of the assembly line in American culture.

Many of the best things in life are unexpected. The efficiency, intelligence and helpfulness of this library staff make Cleveland an attractive place to do research, and I very much expect to return for help with a quite different project, dealing with a young man who grew up in Ohio and edited a newspaper there for some years before the Civil War.

Danish Institute for Advanced Studies Launched

The Rektor of SDU, Jens Oddershede, at the opening ceremony for DIAS

After the American Century       

On Friday September 30, 2011 the Danish Institute for Advanced Studies was officially launched at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). This ambitious project builds on the international recognition already gained by three Institutes at the University of Southern Denmark, in physics, management, and American Studies. DIAS will foster and reward  excellence. Its three divisions already have forged links with leading universities in the US, UK, and EU. The mission of DIAS is to stimulate intellectual creativity by crossing boundaries between disciplines within:

• natural sciences
• social sciences
• humanities

At the end of 2012 DIAS will move into mew offices occupying one floor of a new building on the main campus of SDU

DIAS consists of:

ONE 

Origins and evolution of the universe at the Centre for Particle Physics Phenomenology – CP³-Origins which has been established by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) and opened on the 1st of September 2009 at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. CP3-Origins is the leading centre of excellence for theoretical particle physics phenomenology in Denmark. CP3-Origins aims to exploit experimental results, supercomputers and our theoretical expertise to make the next big leap in particle physics: Uncovering the origin of bright and dark matter in the universe. It will also contribute in other equally relevant quests: understanding the phase diagram of strongly interacting theories and their potential impact on understanding the dynamics behind the rapid expansion of the universe soon after the Big-Bang, known as inflation.

TWO

Origins and evolution of the social organization, is identified with the Strategic Organization Design Unit (SOD), which builds on a long research tradition associated with the evolutionary and behavioral program in economics and organizational science. In 2008 SOD was established as the first FSE research unit by The Danish Council for Independent Research in the Social Sciences (FSE), and in 2011 received the status of an elite unit at the Faculty of Social Sciences, SDU. This group of scholars examines how the organization of individual actions jointly generates organizational performance. Progress in this area is essential in order to develop a robust normative theory of organization design - and to understand how decisions regarding organization design shape performance in private and public organizations.

THREE

Origins and evolution of culture, is identified with the Center for American Studies (CAS). It was established as an SDU research unit in 1992, with additional support during its first decade from the Danish-American Fulbright Commission. CAS is the largest center of its kind in the Nordic countries, and the only one in Denmark to offer both the BA and MA degrees in American Studies. The field has always been concerned with the origins and development of culture, both in the sense of a shared (often contested) national culture and in the more specific sense of new racial, ethnic, and regional identity formations. These have come about through immigration, cultural exchange, and innovation, in a dynamic relation with historical events. Fundamental to American Studies is the realization that cultures are in constant ferment and evolution.　

DIAS is inspired by similar institutions at world’s leading universities such as Princeton, Harvard and Stanford and by advanced research centers in the Netherlands and Germany. It shares the recognition that mankind's greatest achievements have come from inner curiosity, giving rise to new ways of thinking and changes in perception. The directors already collaborate with faculty at IAS, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, CERN and MIT.

DIAS is a center for theoretical research. Initially, it unites outstanding research groups that will foster synergy between the sciences and humanities allowing new ideas to emerge. The union and rapid communication of ideas among research groups allows for the construction of a novel fellowship among the DIAS faculty and increases the competitiveness and global recognition of Danish research.

Getting Rid of Tenured Professors

After the American Century

The political project in Danish education for many years has apparently been to take as much power away from the faculty as possible. (Every change, of course, is made for the good of the university.)

The latest suggestion along these lines has been made by Malou Aamund, a 41-year old politician who has never had a university appointment and never published. It appears that she does not have an advanced degree. With her credentials, she could not be hired as even an assistant professor. Were she still working at IBM, her views would be of little interest. However she is now the education spokesperson for Venstre, the strongest party in the ruling coalition. She recommends that professors only receive their appointments for 10 years, after which they should be re-evaluated, and given at best five-year extensions.

Ms. Aamund proposes an evaluation that would require at least three other professors to stop their research for the equivalent of several weeks or perhaps a month to serve on a committee and read the publications and grant proposals of a senior scholar. Given academic specialization, it is extremely unlikely that any university will have two professors in precisely the same field. Even if they did, the two people would be so close that it would be best to get outsiders on the committee. It is likely that at least one, quite possibly two, of the members of such a committee would have to come from abroad and they would have to be paid well enough to make it attractive for them to do it, and in fact it might be quite difficult to find suitable people to fill such a committee. Such a review would be time-consuming and expensive.

There is second practical problem with this proposal. During the period just before and during an evaluation, the professor in question will not sit passively by, waiting to be approved. Rather, starting a year or two years before the review, he or she would go on the job market. Worse still, the stronger the professor's networks and credentials, the more likely he or she will be offered a new position abroad, where no such reviews take place. Some of the best people will leave, and at the same time the review system will make Denmark less attractive to top foreign scholars.

Denmark by itself cannot make the rules for the international academic world. Already many excellent Danish scholars are attracted to positions overseas where the research funding is better, the PhD students more plentiful, the libraries better, and political interference less common. Making a professor's job less secure will make an academic career less attractive in Denmark and weaken the nation's competitive position. Denmark does not make the rules. (Venstre ought to have learned that at the Climate Summit.) Getting rid of tenure by definition weakens Danish universities and makes them less attractive.

There is yet another problem. Holding a review after ten years and then every five years will create uncertainty in research groups, and quite possibly interfere with their proper functioning. Instead of assuming that the professor and associate professors are fully committed to the team and to the university, the whole group will suspect that colleagues may be looking for work and that they might take major grants to other institutions. Is such uncertainly, mutual suspicion, and disruption a price worth paying for mandatory reviews?

Ms. Aamund presumably means well. No doubt she wants to shake up the university and make sure there is no dead wood in the ranks. But her proposal is impractical, time-consuming, expensive, and very unlikely to achieve its announced goal. Instead of improving quality, it is likely to drive some of the best senior faculty away, create uncertainty among colleagues, and discourage the young from pursuing a university career.

Ms. Aamund and her counterparts in the Conservative Party (who want to make Associate professor jobs provisional as well) seem not to understand that giving faculty tenure saves society money. Why? Because if the university did not give tenure then it would have to compete in an open market to attract the very brightest people. Academics could just as easily have chosen another profession. They are each bright enough to enter several other fields. No one chooses the university because it pays better than law or insurance or just about anything else demanding a comparable education. Take away the possibility of tenure and few people will be willing to struggle through the uncertain early years of an academic career. Take away job security, in other words, and good academics will be hard to recruit or retain. It will become a more difficult market, and only paying better salaries all along the line will then attract and hold people. Having worked in business, Ms. Aamund should understand that.

One final point. Since I am myself a professor, one might assume these arguments are self-interested. But such is not really the case. I am far along on my career path, and if enacted these changes would not have much effect on me. Furthermore, I rather suspect I would pass any fair review, if it came to that. Instead, for me the proposed new system would likely be a bonanza. Universities can only ask professors to evaluate professors and there would be at least three needed to evaluate each candidate for renewal. If the system of reviews were expanded to the associate professors, then the extra work would really begin to pile up and to pay. In short, the review system in practice would almost certainly give more money to almost every one of the professors. That cannot be Ms. Aamund's intent.

On winning a book prize

After the American Century

Some readers of this blog already know that my 2006 book, Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, was selected as the winner of this year's Sally Hacker Prize by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). The award was handed over at the annual banquet of that association in Pittsburgh, October 17 amid what seemed to me to be wild cheering for at least 2 or 3 seconds.

In previous years the winners of various prizes each made a little speech, thanking friends, family, and fellow scholars for their support. We have all heard such speeches, and know why SHOT might think it a good idea not to have them. So I did not give a moving testimony or tell any humorous anecdotes, but simply stood to have my picture taken with the prize.

Getting rid of the other acceptance speeches was a good idea, but in my case, of course, it was not. I had many important ideas to communicate at just that time, and indeed the wine of the previous hours had enhanced my thinking considerably. I am only sorry that these deep insights into the nature and purpose of research and "the meaning of it all" did not get out, because these penetrating thoughts now seem to have evaporated.

Instead, I will merely note that the prize was given for a work published in the previous three years that best explains some aspects of the history of technology to a wider audience. The plaque abbreviates this to "the best popular book." While I was extremely pleased to have fooled the usually more alert jury and gotten this award, one now former friend dryly asserted that this was the prize for the "least unreadable academic book."

If any of my loyal readers are interested, Technology Matters is in paperback for only a few dollars more than it costs to download it in the format of Amazon's Kindle reader. There is also a strange French translation that eliminates most of the notes and some passages of the work, clearly in an attempt to make it even more popular and better suited for the general audience. A German translation has also appeared. This is much longer and seems more scholarly than my original. Indeed, it appears to be so much more profound and more heavily-footnoted in German that I am hoping it will win a prize as a work written not for the general public but for specialists.

Should it win in German, I will insist on giving the speech I have forgotten from the banquet in Pittsburgh.